Halle Berry

It is unusual indeed that I look at a picture of Halle Berry and think, "Eh. Halle doesn't look that great."



Because she is Halle Berry, and she usually looks great regardless of outfit. But this just fills me with eh, meh and feh, with a dash of blah and whole lot of BORING. Am I correct, or has Sharon Stone just ruined me for anyone else? Can this be fixed? Should it be fixed? How? Why? When? Where? Who? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

"So I hear y'all bitches at the tabloids think I've been looking pregnant. Well GET A LOAD OF THIS. It's tight and it's low-cut and I'm wearing the shit out of it, and later I'll be sporting it at my audition for the obligatory Sexy Cylon Whose Dress Is Close To Falling Off Her Breasts role in Battlestar Galactica II: Galactose Intolerant. The only bumps you'll see are the ones spilling out of the top. GOT IT? GREAT."

Love the sassy haircut, Halle, but I can't decide how I feel about the cleavage:



On the one hand: You've got it, and it's holding up nicely, so why not flaunt it through a little peekaboo fabric? But on the other, given how much of her chest is relatively uncovered, I have concerns. Specifically, is that thing a maximum-security prison or one of those country-club jails where you can play mini-golf and sunbathe and accept conjugal visits every other evening? The point being, if she were to, say, run up to hot Taylor Kitsch from Friday Night Lights and fling her arms around him, would one or both of her nipples escape unabated? I am afraid.

Let me preface this post by noting, for anyone not in the area of where I live, that it has been so unseasonably hot in Los Angeles that it may have topped a billion degrees recently. It's the kind of weather where no matter what store you go into -- Home Depot, the dry-cleaner, Bob's Manure Emporium -- every employee seems thrilled to be there simply because it means NOT being outside. So that may explain a lot about Halle Berry's footwear choice here:


[Photo: Splash News]

She just wants to be comfortable and not bathed in foot sweat. I understand that, in principle. And it's probably good that she pulled this with a summery, almost beachy dress -- which in general I would've liked better if it were cut off at the knee, but otherwise, whatever; it doesn't light my fire, nor does it throw water on it -- because flip-flops would look REALLY weird with, say, some frothy pastel confection from Marchesa.

Having said that: Flip-flops? Really? REALLY, Halle? At a big movie premiere? The red carpet is not a red-sand beach, much as that might improve things (just THINK of the number of poorly concealed bathing suits people would wear; we'd be updating a hundred times a day). And sure, it's been 100-plus outside and merely getting in the car and driving to the supermarket involves scorching one's palms on the steering wheel. But as the day's sweltering heat slowly became merely an extremely warm evening, are you telling me Halle couldn't have done it up a bit fancier for her pals in The Soloist? Found some cute flat sandals, if need be? Or at least worn some nicer flip-flops?

Okay, full disclosure: In my book, there is no such thing as nice flip-flops. Hey, we all have our quirks; I also hate sushi, and ergo expect to be deported from California at any moment. But, there are more event-appropriate versions that still ventilate the feet. I can't look at these on her feet here without thinking, "I don't CARE how hot it was. You're at a PREMIERE. PLEASE JUST TRY."

There's been a lot of brouhaha over Harper's Bazaar appearing to Photoshop Halle Berry on its cover. And I get reacting to that with an eye roll and an "Oh, gee, what a shock that people use PHOTOSHOP," because we all know magazines want to sell copies, and what most people actually look like isn't going to do it. If anyone were stupid enough to put me on a magazine cover, I would probably put a "Please Photoshop my face" clause right at the top of my contract.

No, what's MORE interesting to me is that whatever Harper's did or didn't do, it yielded a cover of Halle Berry that's mind-bendingly awful.



Let's set aside for a second the fact that the ENTIRE thing is the color of a sunburn and makes me want to go bathe in aloe. Why would you want a cover of one of the world's hottest women, only to pick one in which she looks like a very cheap Halle Berry impersonator wearing a Jaclyn Smith wig she picked up from K-Mart? What's next? Photographing Angelina Jolie in a full mask? Putting a wig on a stick and calling it Nicole Kidman?

With any luck, by the time that happens, I'll already have gone blind from staring at this cover too long. It's like gazing directly at the sun. Everywhere I look now, I see angry all-caps words screaming at me from hot-pink backgrounds. Pray for me. And SAVE YOURSELVES.

It is really, really hard to argue with this. I mean... is there a human being alive, sexual orientation aside, who doesn't think Halle Berry is freaking beautiful in an almost genetically unbelievable way?

I know, from past e-mails we've gotten about other people, that some readers out there will think, "But LOOK, she's got that armpit-flab thing going on! It doesn't FIT!" But I'm not so sure it means the dress doesn't fit. I mean, maybe it could hit her in a different spot or something and it would help, but here's the thing: Most of us have meat there. If her entire BOOB were falling out the side, that's one thing, but otherwise that soft squish happens at one time or another to almost everyone, ever, on the face of the planet, who has worn a strapless dress. Unless we are crazy gym rats with guns like Madonna's, we ladies are going to have a varying amount of skin there. I would rather Halle Berry stayed the lovely, curvy, glowing, healthy way she is, and had a little of nature's armpit folds, than eschewed food for six months so that she could look like Nicole Richie and not have any flesh left. Know what I mean?

So, my first reaction to this dress was: She looks hot. It would be kind of awesome to worm my way inside her head for a day, Being John Malkovich-style, and know what it feels like to walk around looking like that.

There was, however, an extra detail in the back:

Every time I see an ad for the new Bruce Willis/Halle Berry movie Perfect Stranger, I misread the title as Perfect Strangers, and I can't help wondering which of them is playing Cousin Larry, and which is Balki Bartokomous. (For what it's worth, I think Halle would have to be Cousin Larry. She's definitely more of the straight man-type in that twosome.) Sadly, no one is doing the dance of joy over the outfit  Adriana Lima chose to wear to the movie's premiere:

So many problems. For one thing, when you're a Victoria's Secret model, why why why are you covering everything up like that? Tights AND long-sleeves? Honey, you're a babe, and it's springtime. Show a little skin.

Which brings us to problem number two. When I was a girl, my family would occasionally go to a restaurant called North Woods Inn, which was decorated like a faux log cabin, complete with faux snow on the roof. Inside, there were peanut shells on the floor, roaring fires and huge servings of meat and garlic toast. In retrospect, it was kitschy in the extreme, but fun, especially if you are a kid. Anyway, in addition to the fake snow and the peanuts, North Woods Inn also featured cocktail waitresses who wore -- in the opinion of 9 year old me -- the CUTEST outfits. Basically, they looked like can-can dancers, but with extremely short skirts. So alluring were these uniforms that every girl I knew in my elementary school cherished, at one point or another, a burning desire to be a cocktail waitress when she grew up. And it seems that Adriana must have felt similarly, judging from her Tray Of Boobs. I could rest many a Shirley Temple on that rack and while I think cleavage is awesome, this cleav seems strangely out of place bursting out of the rest of her Salute To Spinsters in Mourning ensemble.

Let's not even talk about the bow. I fear it's holding her head on, and that mental image will send me into a Shirley Temple binge for sure.

I miss Halle Berry's kicky short haircut, the one that was practically her signature for such a long time. Not that she can't rock a full head of hair, but the pixie was cute on her and she is one of those rare individuals with a perfect face that can carry off that sort of cut.

However, that's really the only thing I can say about her that isn't a bit disgustingly glowing. Obviously, I don't know her personally, but...

... the woman sure can wear a dress. It'd be very easy for that neckline to look overly constrictive, or to push things down or up or out in an awkward way, or even to sit low enough that the effect is slightly droopy. But not on Halle. Of course. Everything looks properly lush and plump and fluffed, and the sheen of the dress is stunning against her lovely skin.

Bitch.

Damn, I can't even work up a nice, satisfying resentment of her, no matter how hard I try. I'm just happy for her and I kind of want her to take me shopping. Now, as I said, I don't know her, so maybe she's a complete nightmare and likes to wash her dishes with bourbon and eats nails and uses kittens to scrub the bathroom floor. I don't know her life. But it certainly is a pleasure to watch her wear clothes, and she manages to do it without exuding any kind of arrogance -- there's not really any of that "Yeah, I'm hot, you envious sadsacks, and I KNOW IT, so SUCK ON YOUR SORRY ASSES" stuff going on,  nor any desperation for attention; she just seems to go out there and quietly glow and avoid making a spectacle of herself. She is her own best accessory, and she's developed a real knack for picking clothes that enhance her rather than wear her.

Like I said: Bitch.

Sigh. Still isn't working.

Dear America,

Three things:

1) I'm not pregnant; 2) My body is better than yours; 3) it's 1986 where I am.

Love,

Halle

Anatomy of a Fug: Part One

[Obligatory bit about Halle Berry's great beauty here.] [Sentence about her ability to look at least marginally hot in even a potato sack here.] [Wry comment re:  fact that one could look marginally hot in a potato sack does not mean it would be a good idea to actually WEAR ONE here].

[Insert photo here:

[Note that you've come back to this photo seven or eight times, and been underwhelmed by it each time, despite the fact that you suspect you're supposed to think it's okay here.] [Wonder to self what exactly is wrong with this look,  as you drink a Diet Coke and flip through the Sky Mall catalog you stole the last time you flew. Wonder if you need a giant glass table with a ceramic sculpted Sumo wrestler as a base. Or maybe a hot dog bun warmer. Do NOT note this interlude on site.] [Suggest that maybe she's just TOO SHINY here.][Think about how the fabric of this dress reminds you of the rad shiny foil wallpaper in your friend Jennifer's guest bathroom in 1988. Don't note this either, in case it makes you sad about how you probably can't buy shiny foil wallpaper anymore, and how you'll never have the guest bathroom of your 7th grade dreams after all. Does this also mean that you will never be Mrs. Kirk Cameron? A fate too tragic to continue to consider.] [Wonder what would happen if Halle caught that really long sleeve in the car door/if she's able to eat a meal without getting sauce all over that really long sleeve/if that really long sleeve would, at least, lend itself to making super dramatic entrances and exits here.] [Consider noting that she looks hot from the clavicle up; reject this as being too nice.] [Pithy ending here, perhaps using the words "disco," "Xanadu," "Olivia Newton John's knickers," or some combination thereof here.] [Call Sky Mall about hot dog bun warmer.]